


Cut strings

by Call_Me_Apple



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Dream is just evil, DreamSMP - Freeform, Evil Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hopeful Ending, Loss of Control, Manipulation, Mental Instability, No Dreamon, Pandora's Vault Prison, Prisoner Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit Being a Little Shit (Video Blogging RPF), Violence, Warden Sam | Awesamdude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29153217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Call_Me_Apple/pseuds/Call_Me_Apple
Summary: Dream is defeated, imprisoned in the jail he planned and helped build. Even through solitude and mockery, he holds onto himself, maintains his composure, waiting for an opportunity, a helping hand to free him from this hell.When a person seemingly the least interested in the events of the SMP shows up at the doorstep to Dream’s cell, the puppetmaster’s resolve crumbles at last.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF) & Everyone
Comments: 17
Kudos: 143





	Cut strings

**Author's Note:**

> tw // slight self harm mention, violence  
> Inside me there are two wolves. One loves writing dsmp!Dream as an irredeemable, coldhearted villain, the other wants him to feel genuine anguish and remorse. I am an angst writer.  
> So here’s a fanfic about Dream’s slow descent into madness that he has no one but himself to blame for.

As one would suspect, being locked away in what is likely the most secure jail cell ever invented is not a very entertaining experience.

Dream’s days pass in a blur of nothingness. He spends his time sitting cross-legged on the obsidian floor, lost in thought, watching the time pass on the wall clock. The only thing he looks forward to are the eventual visits of the server’s members and the scheduled check-ups from the prison guards.

He knows Sapnap is a member of security, yet out of all the guards, his childhood friend is the one who has failed to check on the prisoner so far. 

As expected, Tommy is the first person to see him as a guest. The meeting brings much excitement into Dream’s lonely cell, but only for a short while. Dream amuses himself by playing the miserable, guilt-ridden prisoner. He lets Tommy mock him, apologises to the kid, tries to slip into the cracks of his mind with sorrowful words, but the brat doesn’t yield. Tommy has had far too much experience with Dream’s manipulation to cave in so soon.

That is fine, it’s not like Dream is busy these days. Tommy will come to mock him again, and Dream will once again play the part of the poor, sad prisoner. Their game won’t end for a while yet.

So Dream waits. He actually does the ‘homework’ Tommy has given him. Not out of the desire to abide the child, but rather the lack of anything better to do. He finds the challenge of writing 15-page essays on topics invented by a defiant brat to be quite entertaining.

And so he sits, writes, schemes, watches the clock, takes his raw potato rations from the guards, and awaits his next visitor.

* * *

Solitude affects Dream stronger than he expected it to. In the absence of his usual tasks and people to mess with, Dream turns to rambling to the guards for entertainment. 

One time, when Sam himself arrives at the cell with rations, Dream's mutterings go in a direction he probably should've avoided. He rambles on about how much of a fool Tommy is, how easy it was to make him think Dream was his friend, how funny it was to see the dismay on the child’s face each time his items were destroyed…

It takes hearing the plate of rations clatter to the ground loudly for Dream to snap out of his reminiscence and realise just what he’s saying, but by then it is too late to take back the words, his confession hanging heavy in the air. He looks at Sam, who stands by the entrance with curled fists, shoulders squared and body tense, an angered hiss erupting from the creeper hybrid.

The warden is greatly displeased by the prisoner’s confession. Dream is told that a punishment is in order. There isn’t much opportunity for punishment when imprisonment has already rid you of your basic rights, however, so the only thing Sam can do is take away Dream’s visiting privilege and lower his rations.

So Tommy can’t visit him on the 24th.

He does show up a few days later, once the visiting ban is off. 

They talk. Dream tries to apologize and play the repentant villain again, but Tommy doesn’t take the bait. The child just mocks him again. Tommy goes through the homework he gave Dream, and is surprised to find the pages of the novels filled with handwritten text. It’s mostly gibberish, anyway, word vomit with little meaning put into it, but the fact that Dream put any effort at all seems surprising. The only book out of the five that doesn’t have all fifteen required pages filled out is the ‘Why’ novel.

“I kind of wanted to see this one the most.” Tommy looks at the book in question with judgement, then at Dream with disappointment. “Why didn’t you finish it, huh?”

“Couldn’t come up with enough.” Tommy seems unimpressed by that explanation, so Dream puts in the effort to look apologetic and sad. “I’m sorry, I tried.”

The ‘Why’ novel is mostly filled with empty platitudes, no specifics and little sincerity - nothing but fake words written to create a certain impression, just like the rest of the ‘homework’, just like Dream himself. Tommy sees right through his lies, right through Dream’s manipulation, and it annoys the imprisoned server owner to no end. 

That day, Tommy leaves with the same spiteful attitude he arrived with, completely unaffected by Dream’s display of loneliness and grief.

* * *

The next person to show up is Ranboo.

He arrives at the cell with a much more subdued demeanor compared to the insufferable child. He comes with a purpose. Ranboo has questions.

He wants clarity, he says. And, hopefully, closure. 

They sit on the floor and talk for a long while - about memory loss, about manipulation, about discs and explosives, about voices. Ranboo leads Dream through the maze of broken memories that is his mind, trying to piece together what was real and what wasn’t.

“On the day of the disc confrontation… why did you say it was you and not… me?”

“Because it’s the truth,” Dream says simply.

“Then why do I have all these memories of doing it? Why is part of me trying to convince myself of doing all those crimes?” the boy says with a hint of desperation in his voice.

“Because that is the truth too.”

Ranboo sends him a perplexed look. “What?” Dream sighs, a smirk hidden behind his mask. It seems he couldn't talk around it, after all, so it is time to have a little fun. 

Sometimes the truth has so much more effect than a lie. So Dream speaks the truth.

“I have been using you, Ranboo. As a sort of… proxy,” he explains in an unsettled voice, as if shocked by his own words. “You dissociate sometimes, and when you do, you can’t tell what’s right or wrong. So I’ve been telling you to do things for me. To help me blow up the community house, to store the disc-”

Beside him, Ranboo’s hands fly to his face, covering his mouth in dismay. “Oh god, oh god,” the boy mumbles with wide eyes, “so the voice was right all along.”

“I don’t know what that voice is, but it seems to be so.”

“But… why?”

“It made my job easier. I could save time by giving you some of my tasks, use you for a safe place to store my valuables,” he elaborates calmly. Dream pulls his knees towards himself, hunches his shoulders inward, making his figure look smaller, weaker, his voice lower and quieter. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, here, in the prison. Not much else to do, you know,” he says with a chuckle that holds no humor in it. “And I’ve been thinking about… what a monster I’ve been. Manipulating Tommy, manipulating you, ruining the lives of everyone… It’s been messing with my head, my past… my actions… it’s all I can think about.” In that moment, his voice cracks, only serving to strengthen his expression of misery. “Something else has been on my mind, too."

Throughout his monologue, Ranboo grew seemingly more and more uncomfortable, folding into himself with every word. Now, he looks contemplative, curious. "Like what?" 

"You."

Ranboo flinches at the word, shoulders hunching up to his ears. An inhuman croak slips from his throat. He stares at the floor, unwilling to meet the eyes of Dream’s mask. After a minute of awkwards silence, he speaks up in a small, hesitant voice, afraid of the answer. “How so?”

Dream hums. "When you think about it, we aren’t that different, you and I. You know how it feels to be left with your own thoughts."

At that, Ranboo’s head snaps to the side to face Dream. "Yeah, I do, but I didn't blow up everything… I wasn’t like you!"

"You were like me, Ranboo. You did everything I did. You helped me. What's the difference between me and you? We want the same things! I wanted the server to be peaceful again! To have a big, happy family. Isn’t that what you want as well? I just… went about it the wrong way.”

Ranboo has nothing to say to that, opting to return to staring at the floor, so Dream continues, trying to persuade the impressionable boy.

"I saw how you looked at me on the day I was imprisoned. I met your gaze, and saw my reflection in your eyes. You were afraid of meeting my fate. I could’ve given you up, told everyone you blew up the community house and it would’ve been the truth! But I didn’t, I covered for you. And look at where that got me,” Dream grasps Ranboo’s shoulders, channeling all his desperation into his voice. “I’ve only been here a few days and this place is already driving me mad. I can't stay here Ranboo, I'll go insane! I need your help! Free me. Free yourself. Free us."

Ranboo almost bends. 

Dream can see a hesitant plan bloom behind the boy’s eyes - he glances away, brows furrowing, teeth grazing his lower lip. Ranboo is so easy to influence that it's kind of sad. The lack of confidence in his very perception of things makes him into a moldable fool, a marionette. 

But just like Tommy once did, just like everyone else did once Dream was imprisoned, Ranboo began slipping out of the strings that bind him to Dream. Dream has to act as early as possible, tie his puppet tight around his fingers again before he can escape his grasp.

"But… I am not you. I am not… I am not evil!" Ranboo says, to Dream and to himself.

"Neither am I, then." 

The two sit in silence for minutes, neither looking at each other. With each mute second, Dream can feel the hybrid regain his thoughts, his composure, his freedom. Dream can’t let him get loose, can’t let him be independent. The puppetmaster’s brain whirs, cogs turning at a rapid pace, trying to come up with something else to say, something to lure Ranboo into his area of control.

Dream is failing, he knows this. But he can’t fail. But his mind is empty and Ranboo is going to leave and be out of his grasp again, and Dream will-

"I need to think. Alone," the monochrome boy says, at last, and stands up. 

An exhausted, sorrowful sigh leaves Dream, "Alright. Visit again soon. These meetings are… kinda the highlight of my life, right now."

Ranboo has no response for that comment. He simply calls for Sam and follows the warden’s instructions on how to exit the cell, leaving Dream behind, alone, to serve the rest of his lifetime sentence.

Dream can do nothing but watch as one of his remaining specks of hope leaves.

* * *

Dream’s next visitor is rather unexpected. 

Philza stands before Dream dressed in his furred, arctic robe. His spread, clipped wings block the light from the lava, forming foreboding red shadows on his silhouette. 

"I won't be here long. Just came to pass on a message," he says, looking at Dream with distaste, "Ranboo has told me about your meeting. He won't be coming here again."

Sweat breaks out all over Dream’s body at the words, but he swiftly hides his shock, looking up at the older man with confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You might have been able to mess with that child’s mind, but you can’t fool me. I know what you are trying to do, drawing parallels between yourself and Ranboo, asking Tommy to keep visiting, messaging Techno, practically begging your one-time ally for help. You’re desperate, Dream,” Phil says in a voice as cold as the arctic he came from. “And you deserve it all.”

The inmate is silent, at a loss for words, so unused to hearing Philza talk so much and with such honesty.

“We may have been on the same side once, but we have never been friends. I knew what you were all along and I was content with letting you be, so long as you didn’t go after me and Techno. But now I realize that you weren’t going to stop at L’Manburg, not even at Tommy. You would’ve continued your carnage until every single person was under your thumb, and by then, there would’ve been no server left.”

Following what has at this point become instinct, Dream drops to the ground and draws his knees up, looking as miserable as he can. He hears Phil scoff, but ignores it. “I know, and I’m sorry,” Dream says in a practiced manner. “I want to make up for it, you know? I want to change, but being here, in a cage, with barely any interaction-” 

“Oh, shut it,” Phil interrupts him, followed by his trademark out-of-place laugh. “No need to act all pitiful in front of me, I am not giving you a helping hand. I’ve said all I wanted to anyway, so,” he turns, steps back and calls for the warden to lower the lava. “I’ll be taking my leave.”

As the lava wall clears and the floating bridge stops before Philza’s boots, anguish surges in Dream. Phil is right, he is desperate, desperate for an escape, for freedom, for a chance to see the sky and grass again. “Phil, please-”

“It’s done, Dream,” Philza says as he steps onto the bridge, “I hope I never have to see your creepy mask outside these walls again.”

And then with that, Dream is once again left alone, with nothing to do but brew in the thoughts of his own failure.

* * *

Tommy becomes a regular guest of the prison.

The child appears before Dream once every few days with the same aggravating, mocking, egotistical attitude. Each time Tommy has a new story to tell - about how peaceful the SMP has been since Dream was imprisoned, about a project someone has started. There are no wars anymore, only mischief, no loss, only gain. It’s all better now, without him, and nobody regrets locking him up. The only memory of his existence is a massive crater in the place that once called itself a nation, the only pain he now brings is the anxiety that crawls up people’s spine whenever they pass the intimidating sight of the massive blackstone prison.

With each visit, Dream hates the child more. After each unsuccessful attempt at proving that he’s changed, that he feels guilty, Dream’s hands itch with the desire to do something, anything. To express his irritation. To hurt.

One day, Dream watches Tommy's mouth move as it forms words that fall on deaf ears. Fury brews in him at the defiant, spiteful attitude of the child, the confident smirk he constantly wears. How dare he. How dare he resist Dream's manipulation, how dare he be the first to tear the puppetmaster's strings, to beat Dream with nothing other than 'the power of friendship', like they were characters in a childrens' cartoon.

“Who do you miss the most?” he asks every time he visits. Every time, Dream dodges the question.

Every time, once Tommy leaves, he sits on the floor and thinks of the past. Of the server’s beginnings. Of harmless pranks and simple fun. Of childhood friends, of pets, of shared houses.

“Who do you miss the most?” Tommy asks.

Myself, Dream doesn’t say.

Dream's gaze lowers from Tommy's face. The child's neck is long, thin and frail. Vulnerable. Dream imagines his bare, ungloved hands wrap around the stalk and squeeze harshly, strangling the life out of the brat in front of him as the boy whines and writhes in his hands. 

Dream’s fists tremble and tighten, nails digging into the skin of his palm. He can’t do that yet. Their game isn’t over yet. Dream has to escape first, then he can come back to his hobby of torturing the insufferable child.

In his usual, boisterous tone, Tommy says, "Well I sure know that no one misses you! Not even Sapnap and George-" 

Dream snaps. 

He lunges forward, fingers wrapping around Tommy's neck and squeezing. 

"You are a moron, Tommy. A moron for thinking you are safe, that I won't get out of here. I will leave these walls, and when I do, I will dedicate the rest of my life to filling your pathetic existence with nothing but misery. I will gut Tubbo in front of your very eyes and I will bring him back to life only to murder him again, and again, and again. You and your friends will never be safe, Tommy."

There is genuine fear in Tommy's eyes. Dream drinks the sight like he would fine wine, enjoying every speck of terror that sparks in his victim's gaze. That's the emotion he's been seeking from Tommy. His mind flashes to the few times he has seen delicious terror in the kid's eyes - to their first duel, to the exile, to Tubbo begging for his life. Dream feels the flesh between his hands constrict and convulse as Tommy chokes, the child's hands flailing, trying to get Dream off him. A particularly strong strike on the elbow makes Dream's grip weaken and gives Tommy enough air to scream "Sam!"

The warden is by their side just in time to save Tommy from the inevitable collapse of his windpipe. Dream is effortlessly thrown off the boy and back into his cell, his limp body rolling on the floor, hands and knees scraping against the obsidian.

Tommy coughs and wheezes from a bent-over position. Sam's protective hand holds him by the shoulder so that the boy doesn’t accidentally slip into lava in his struggle to breathe. 

“You really are a psycho!” Tommy shouts in between coughs. “If you aren’t gonna change, then maybe you should just rot here forever!”

Dream knows he made a mistake. He should have held himself back, ignored the urge to smother the idiot child. Weeks of seeing nothing but obsidian walls, hearing nothing but the pops of lava, clicks of redstone mechanisms and the rustle of book pages have grated on his psyche and weakened his composure. He wants to get out of here, wants to run free, be anywhere but this cell. 

But all the strings that connected him to the world outside the prison have been cut. Punz doesn’t work for him anymore, Ranboo is outside his influence and so is Tommy, Technoblade is still ignoring his demands that the favor be returned. Sam is unswayable. His life-long friends have been abandoned by him long ago, one roames the halls of this very prison, keeps Dream locked in, the other runs freely around the SMP, probably without a single thought of Dream visiting his adventurous, carefree mind.

Dream is utterly, completely alone.

The prisoner rises to his knees and looks at his captors. “Tommy, please. I don’t have anything left. I’m harmless! See how this place is affecting me? I can’t even control my urges anymore! It’s driving me mad!” Dream shouts, genuine pain in his voice, for once. “Don’t make me stay here, please, get me out! I’ve apologized, I’ve given you everything! What else do you need from me?”

Tommy wipes at his eyes. “I don’t know? Something real, for once?! A speck of sincerity, a genuine apology? Something the old Dream would do instead of constantly attempting to manipulate me again!” the boy yells, for once slipping out of his boisterous persona. “I know you tried to convince me you were my friend just to use me, but… but before all this, you really were my friend, you know. More of a frenemy… but, still. A friend.”

“Now you are nothing but a villain to me. To everyone.” Tommy sniffs, looks at Sam awkwardly and turns around to step back on the bridge. “It’s over, Dream. I am not coming to see you again, it seems all it does is give you hope,” he glances back for the last time to send a sad, disappointed look Dream’s way. “Maybe some time alone will help you collect your wits.”

There’s no way he’s telling the truth. He and Tommy are tied together, inseparable, the yin and yang, he couldn’t stay away if he tried to. The hint of a smile creeps into Dream’s voice as he says, disbelievingly, “Tommy-” only to cut himself off when he sees the finality in the eyes of his arch-nemesis.

Tommy and Sam leave. Dream feels emptier than he ever has. His hands shake, his eyes itch, his chest blooms with some feeling he doesn’t think he’s ever felt before. 

He said he cut himself from all attachments - his items, his house, his pets, his friends - but in reality, there is still one string connecting him to the world - to Tommy. The person who brought attachment to the server in the first place, the one who disrupted his peace.

His last attachment. His obsession. The last and final person to visit him, to want to see him. The straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Dream imagines spending eternity in a cell surrounded by lava, with no other living beings seeing him other than silent guards. No games to play, no puppets to control, no friends to talk to. No one, nothing but his own disgusting presence.

An anguished scream tears itself out of Dream’s throat, reverberating against the blackstone walls. He sees Tommy jump at the sound on the other side of the gap, right before lava hides him from view. Dream’s voice echoes against the thick liquid back into the cell in a loop, until his own pain is the only thing he can hear, until he loses his voice.

Dream crawls into a corner by the chest and curls into a ball, ears ringing. His chest rises and falls rapidly, lungs burning as he hyperventilates. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to be the one in the cell, wasn’t supposed to lose all of his pivots of control.

Dream raises his shaking hands and types out a desperate message in the air, one of many already sent to his one-time ally.

_Technoblade, I can't do this anymore. I am going to go insane in these walls. Do something. HELP ME. SAVE ME. YOU OWE ME._

He knows there will be no reply. There hasn’t been one since he was locked in here. But he still yearns for one, for a single chance, for hope.

_Please, I am begging you._

__

__

_Techno, please…_

Minutes pass by in silence and the remainder of hope drains from Dream. Then, suddenly, his inner mailbox pings with a message. 

_Did you really think that I, an anarchist, would be swayed by some favor into helping the server's number one tyrant?_

__

__

_It's over, Dream._

“It’s over, Dream,” Tommy’s voice from minutes ago echoes in his mind.

It takes a good minute for Dream to process the message.

And then he breaks.

* * *

Dream can practically feel his last wits trickle out as the days go by. 

There is nothing to do in his cell but think, and think, and think. He writes, sometimes, makes up poems and stories. Sometimes the stories are real, sometimes they are what he would have prefered to be real. Mostly, however, he just stares at the walls and ceiling. 

Weeks pass. Or maybe it's months? Time means nothing to Dream anymore. His life is an indistinguishable streak of boredom, disrupted only by the guards' visits. No one from outside the prison comes to him anymore. He wonders if anyone even remembers him or if all traces of his existence have been wiped from the world with time. He wonders if one day they’ll just forget he was put into the prison in the first place and leave him to die of old age. 

He even stops paying attention to the guards, accepting his rations in silence.

That is until he hears a voice that makes his heart throb.

“Dream.” The inmate looks up sharply from the corner of the tiny room, his mind focusing for the first time in weeks. Sapnap, one of the guards, stands before him. 

Dream's eyes widen, mouth falling open in shock.

"How have you been?" Sapnap asks tersely.

The inmate is at a loss for a reply.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Dream wilts. His heart thunders in his chest like a caged bird trying to escape. He doesn’t know how to deal with this, he isn’t ready to be confronted by one of his dearest friends.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a broken voice, unable to come up with anything more.

“For what?”

“For everything.”

Sapnap lets out an unimpressed tsk. “Of course you are.”

He doesn’t believe him. 

Of course he doesn’t believe him. Dream is a monster, the devil, the puppetmaster, taking every opportunity to tangle someone’s mind in his strings. Dream is a manipulator without a speck of feelings or sincerity. Sapnap has no reason to believe otherwise.

But it still hurts. It hurts to see the anger, the disappointment in his friend’s eyes, even though it’s well deserved.

“I just wanna know why, Dream,” the guard asks. “You wanted peace, didn’t you? Yet, somehow, everything is much more peaceful now that you aren’t a factor.” He watches Dream, waiting for a reply and when he doesn’t get one, he huffs angrily. “Just tell me why, Dream!”

“I don’t know!” Dream shouts, surprising himself and his friend. His voice breaks mid-sentence, unused to speaking, nevertheless yelling. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” Dream’s hands rise to his head, fingers pulling at dirty blond hair. “I just wanted to go back…”

“Back to what?”

“The beginning. To the community house-,” he chokes out, “to us.”

“And yet one of the first things you did when you went on your control-freak spree was cut us off,” Sapnap spits out. “George thought you hated him.”

“I know,” Dream croaks out, “I know. I knew what I was becoming, what people would think of me. I didn’t want to involve you.”

“Well, as you can see, we got involved anyway!”

The prisoner flinches at his friend’s angry voice. He glances at Sapnap out the corner of his eye. The other seems to have finally accepted Dream’s sincerity, because Sapnap looks at him with pity and the slightest amount of guilt. 

“At least the others didn’t go after you because of me,” Dream says. 

“I guess.”

Their heated conversation tapers out into silence abruptly. The normally irritable man quickly loses steam in the face of what seems to be Dream’s genuine remorse, his anger vanishing. They stay silent for a while, processing the argument, until Dream decides to speak up.

“Why are you here? To deliver my rations? To get answers?”

“Actually, I came here because of George.” Sapnap folds his hands on his chest. “He mentioned he wanted to visit, but we’ve heard of your bullshit from others, so I decided to test the waters first.”

“George wants to visit..?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Didn’t say.” Sapnap replies, glancing away with a huff. “Probably in the next few days if I give him the green light.”

Dream feels lightheaded just at the thought of seeing George. He asks timidly, “Will you..?”

“I’m not sure. I need to think.”

“That’s understandable.” There is another lull in their awkward conversation. Dream wonders how it escalated so quickly, but on second thought, it wasn’t that much of a surprise when dealing with a personality as fiery as Sapnap’s. Has he been away from his two best friends for so long that he started forgetting their quirks? The idea pains Dream. He doesn’t think there has been a single day of his imprisonment when his thoughts didn’t roam to his childhood friends. “I missed you, you know.”

“We miss you too.” The use of present tense doesn’t go unnoticed by the prisoner. He may still consider George and Sapnap to be his best friends, but it seems that the sentiment isn’t returned. To them, he is a monster. He knew this could happen, it’s one of the reasons he cut them off in the first place, but it still hurts. Being alone hurts. 

The guard is watching him with a pensive expression, evaluating him. Dream is prepared for Sapnap to say goodbye and leave, or to start arguing again. but to the prisoner’s surprise, he huffs and walks up to him instead, stretching a hand towards where Dream is sitting on the floor. Dream oggles the offered palm tentatively, to which Sapnap rolls his eyes and bends his fingers in a welcoming motion. 

“C’mon, brother. C’mere.”

With great hesitation, like a stray accepting offered food for the first time, Dream grasps his friend’s hand and is swiftly pulled up to his feet. His touch-starved heart doesn’t have the time to relish in the moment of contact before he is pulled into a tight, smothering hug. 

The warmth and pressure on his body overwhelms the deprived prisoner and he lets out a choked sound of surprise as Sapnap’s arms wrap around his neck and shoulders. For a second or two, Dream stands still, paralyzed, just trying to come to terms with the situation. His friend, whom he had abandoned, who he thought hated him, was hugging him after weeks of not seeing each other.

Dream doesn’t deserve this, he knows it, and yet he can’t help the warmth blossoming in his chest, the hope that he is still worth something to someone.

Slowly, carefully his shaking arms sneak around Sapnap’s body, returning the hug. 

Maybe there was still a place for him in this world, after all.

* * *

Sapnap left without any promises, Dream doesn’t know if he should expect another visit, so he just waits, expressing his silent longing in doodles scribbled on book pages.

One morning, Sam tells him he’ll be getting a visitor, and Dream spends the day anxiously waiting for the lava wall to fall.

The guest shows up around midday.

Dream hears the clicks of mechanisms first - Sam preparing the visitor to enter the cell, the dispensers taking back the lava. Then, the curtain of deadly heat falls to reveal George on the other side of the pit.

Dream’s breath gets stuck in his throat at the sight of the frail man. George’s face betrays no emotion - mouth stretched into a fine line, eyes covered by his trademark circular glasses. For a few seconds, colorblind lenses meet the two dots of a smiley-face mask, then, the warden instructs George to step onto the flying bridge. Dream anxiously waits for his friend, body twitching with excitement. Eventually, George steps onto the ledge of the cell, the bridge retracts and the final barrier between them - the netherite fence - drops. 

For a minute, they’re both unsure how to proceed. George is the first to speak.

“Hi, Dream,” he says, cutting the charged silence between them.

“Hi.”

They stare at each other awkwardly for another minute, Dream’s heart beating hard against his ribs with each passing second. George is the one who decides to cut to the chase.

The brunet sighs deeply, preparing himself for the conversation to come and scratches the back of his neck anxiously. The familiar gestures fill Dream with warmth and soften his agitation somewhat. George never was one to show emotion. He wasn’t necessarily cold, just distant, so to see the slightest bit of animation from the man was a great reassurance. 

“We need to talk,” George says simply.

Dream nods, agreeing. “What about?”

“Everything,” the other answers in an even voice. “The community house, the wars. You. Your villainy. Us.” 

Dream swallows, his sins chillingly crawling up his spine. “Ask away.”

George takes the time to think of what to start with. He glances aside in thought. Dream sees George’s brows furrow in confusion and grief, before the visitor turns back to him with his usual impassive expression. "What made you like this?" George asks, "What went wrong?" 

His answer is silence. Dream doesn't know. He wishes he did.

"You sure are talkative," George says with heavy sarcasm.

"I just don't know the answer to that," the prisoner responds. "With time I just… started getting pissed off at Tommy." He remembers his anger at Tommy breaking the rules for the first time. Dream made it clear that stealing and griefing were prohibited when he let the child in, yet the dumb boy started going against his authority the moment he was on the server. It was when Tommy started pitting his friends against each other that Dream’s anger began overtaking him. 

“I thought you hated me, you know,” George confesses. “I thought you didn’t trust me with kingship, that you were just coming up with excuses to take away my power. I wasn’t there for the final confrontation, but Sapnap relayed… what you've been doing." He smiles sadly, "Now I realise that you just wanted to cut us off. To protect us… from yourself. And that gives me hope. I know you have a good heart, deep inside. You have good intentions."

Do intentions matter though, when your actions are seen as monstrous by everyone else? Even those closest to you? "I've ruined it all, haven't I?" Dream thinks aloud. "It wasn't Tommy who changed everything for the worst." His gaze falls on his own bare hands, pale from the lack of sunlight and scraped from constant scrambling along rough obsidian surfaces. Hands that at different points in time were baked in blood, soot or blackstone dust. "It was me." 

"Maybe. I don't know, Dream." George looks away, eyelashes fluttering. "I just want my friend back."

Unsolicited tears spring to Dream's eyes. "I just want it all back." He looks down at his cruel, murderous hands again and watches as his fingers curl, nails digging into his palm to ground himself with the pain. "The community house, the harmless pranks, just you, me, Sapnap, Callahan, Bad…" He tears at his hair. "How did it go like this…"

George reaches out slowly, reluctantly, and Dream desperately grasps the opportunity at comfort and jumps towards George, wraps his hands around his old friend's body, and weeps. 

He cries like he hasn't in years, tears stream from his eyes in waterfalls, sliding down his cheeks and soaking into George's shirt. His friend holds him through it all, letting him wail and drown himself in tears, until Dream's throat is sore from crying and an emptiness settles into his drained heart. It is only then that George begins to speak. 

“You say you wish it all went differently, but you don’t really regret it, do you? You don’t regret all those things you’ve done - destroying L’Manburg, destroying the community house, what you did to poor Tommy… you only regret it because it didn’t get you what you wanted.” George pulls away to meet the two dots of Dream's mask. “Am I wrong?”

“I guess… I guess you're right. I guess I don’t really regret it.”

George's brows draw together in displeasure. “Dream, you’ve done terrible things… I’ve only heard bits and pieces, but just that is enough for me to be horrified at what you’ve done to Tommy in his exile.”

“That child deserved it,” Dream says in a growl that quickly morphs into a smug tone. “And it was fun.”

George looks at him with a mixture of horror, sadness and concern. “Dream…”

“I know what I’ve done is terrible, objectively,” he confesses, “yet I can’t bring myself to feel bad about it.”

“What is wrong with you..?” George asks in a worried tone, the all-too-familiar mocking quality to it making Dream’s heart squeeze in his chest. “You say such horrible things with no hesitation. What’s made you like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“What could’ve screwed with your head like that?”

Dream’s eyes widen. “The Dreamon! When Pogtopia was still a thing, I was possessed- ”

“You’ve been what?” George asks with a snort, interrupting Dream, “Dreamon… is that some… Dream demon? You aren’t about to blame all of your wrongdoings on some supernatural entity, are you?"

Dream smiles bitterly. George never could take things seriously. 

“It’s the only explanation I can come up with.” 

George sighs. “Dream, I’ll be frank, you deserve some kind of punishment.” He looks around the cell - at the plain walls, the clock, the chest full of books. “But I don’t think that locking someone up in an obsidian room fosters redemption.”

Dream tries not to let hope overtake him, but his immediate joy at the words is clear. His back straightens, eyes widen and a smile pulls at his lips - things that don’t go unnoticed by George, who shakes him by the shoulders with a frown.

“Don’t get too excited! I want to help you, Dream, but you’ll still need to work on yourself. I’ll visit and try to get others to visit too, maybe I’ll convince Sam to give you something else to do other than… writing books and staring at walls all day.”

Another alarming thought seems to cross George’s mind, because his brows furrow further in apprehension. “Dream, weren’t you the one to design the prison? Does that mean you wanted Tommy to exist in these conditions? Conditions that are now driving you insane?”

Dream shrugs awkwardly, unable to deny what was a very reasonable conclusion. 

George looks at him in a very disturbed manner. “Jesus, Dream. You really are messed up.”

“Being stuck in an obsidian box for weeks might’ve played a role in that.”

“An obsidian box you designed yourself, fully aware someone would eventually be locked up in it?”

Dream can’t ignore the irony in that. “Touché.” 

Another awkward silence falls upon them. Their conversation is over. George should leave and Dream should return to his solitude, yet he doesn’t want George to leave his arms. He doesn’t want to be alone again with only the heat of the lava to warm his cold, cold heart. So they stay there, in the middle of the cell, arms still wrapped around each other, neither willing to part.

“Thanks for… worrying about my wellbeing, I guess,” he says, giving George an out, an opportunity to say his goodbyes and leave, because he knows there’s no way he will be able to say that himself. “Not many people seem to do that, nowadays.”

George doesn’t seem ready to leave either, because he glances back at Dream tentatively. “Sapnap told me you write. Do you think I could… see it?”

As if he even had to ask.

They spend the rest of the visit exploring Dream’s writing and drawings. George comes across his terrible amateur poetry, reading the clumsy rhymes with amusement, causing Dream to blush in embarrassment. Just for a bit, Dream feels so much lighter, his many sins discarded and forgotten, just for this one moment. Beside George, surrounded by laughter and friendly bickering, he feels at home. 

And when the warden eventually comes to drag George out the cell, the visitor promises Dream to return as they hug one last time. He promises him a chance, an opportunity, one that Dream intends on taking. 

There is still a coldness in his heart, there is still little remorse in his mind, but he feels that some of the ice barrier surrounding his wretched soul has melted. Even if he can’t feel guilt for what he’s done, perhaps he can learn to, with time.

Perhaps the only reason he went off the deep end was that he made sure there was no one to pull him back from the ledge.

For the first time since his imprisonment, Dream can see the light from the hole he’d dug himself into. He doesn’t deserve freedom, not yet, but he wants to try being good, to earn liberty and love.

All he needed was a chance.

**Author's Note:**

> Mmm sweet sweet angst with a hint of comfort.  
> I stole part of Dream and Ranboo’s dialogue from a Twitter reply by [@honkphoenix](https://twitter.com/honkphoenix) so consider checking them out.  
> Upd: that Tommy scene did not age well oof
> 
> If you enjoyed reading, consider leaving kudos, comments and following me on Twitter!  
> And if you want to see more, subscribe to my profile on ao3!  
> [My Twitter](https://twitter.com/Call_Me_Apple_)  
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